I came home Wednesday night after a dinner meeting and a soda with friends to be whalloped by a stomach bug, but I went in to the office this afternoon to take care of a few details, so I must be feeling better finally. Hooray!

Being sick gives one a perspective on daytime tv that one doesn’t normally receive. Folks, it sucks. Let’s see — news, talk shows, judge shows, game shows, and soap operas. Thank goodness for PBS, where even if I hadn’t found BritComs, I would at least have found Sesame Street (even if I would have had to turn it off during “Elmo’s World”).

When I was a kid, being sick meant seeing all sorts of wonderful shows — Green Acres, I Love Lucy, Perry Mason. What ever happened to mindless, but harmless fluff?

I think tonight will be low-key and will involve easy things like introducing solid foods (cinnamon toast, here I come!), stockinette stitch, and vegging in front of the tv.

Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. A neighbor has two Marmaduke-sized dogs that must be part dalmation because they have the same coloration as holsteins.

2. My new jeans came with a small, bluish, porous pebble in the pocket.

3. The silvery sheen of wet pavement on a sunny morning after a snowy night.

Sunday, I’m having a birthday party.

And game night.

And Grammy Awards watch party.

Luckily, it’s just one event.

But I’ll be celebrating birthday #11(x3) next week, so I think multi-tasking is part of the deal for the modern pre-teen.

Click here to see a few more winter shots.

I finished two scarves for the Food and Friends drive last week.

To celebrate, I started a sweater. I’m about a third of the way done with the back panel.

I bought the yarn way back at the Maryland Sheep and Wool. It’s Peace Fleece sportweight in Georgia Rose, which I’m knitting up into the drop-sleeve Everyday Cardigan.

Suzanne is knitting the same sweater, but in a foresty shade of green. If we don’t finish them in time to wear them this winter (D.C. currently is having its coldest temperatures in a decade), we hope to have them done in April or May, when pink and green are two of the Project Spectrum 2.0‘s colors.

Remember you can click on the photos to see larger versions of the shots at Flickr.

After yesterday morning’s battle with spammers, the blog is feeling much better. I’ve upgraded a couple of things and added a couple of things at Rudi‘s suggestion, so now we should be back to normal.

We spent yesterday afternoon out in Virginia, which, as you know by now, means I spent a lot of money. But I bought some cute clothes and some cute shoes (pictures to come later in the week), so I guess that’s good. We also stopped by Panera Bread for lupper where, in addition to getting to sit next to a fireplace, I also had the most beautiful cup of cocoa. It was served in a giant cappuccino mug and topped with a mountain of whipped cream with a trail of chocolate sauce leading to the summit. Exquisite.

Today we slept in, wandered to the farmers’ market, and got to chat with our friend, Erik. Then Rudi went out for a bike ride (crazy!) while I played with Dance Dance Revolution. We finished the night with a trip to our friends Pat and Heidi’s to watch the Super Bowl with them, their three darling kids, and our other friends, Jerry and Dan.

I’m really not ready for the weekend to be over. But I guess all good things must come to an end, right? And if Monday never came, neither would Monday night, which offers the best tv of the week.